“I was contacted digitally,” he replies, shifting in his seat, obviously trying to get more comfortable with the cuffs. “There were never any names exchanged.”
A disappointing answer, but I’m not ready to give up just yet. I want this cleaned up nice and neatly for Hadley. She’s the only thing on my mind right now. “But you were contacted through your email?”
Caleb nods. “Yeah.”
I glance at Lee, who’s behind me again. “Get Jeff.” He accepts my order, immediately leaving the cabin, and I turn to Caleb again. “And you weren’t curious enough to look into who sent you the job yourself?”
He half shrugs. “They paid. A lot. And on time. I didn’t care.”
Another sign of his inexperience. To not know who you work for is beyond foolish.
Footsteps bang against the boat’s deck before Jeff’s chipper voice fills the cabin, “Whatcha need, chief?”
Jeff’s a lean and lanky, baby-faced hard worker, and he’s also the hacker who always joins me on scene. While Alex is my sidekick on most cases, she also wisely runs from danger, not straight into it. “Check Caleb’s email and see if you can find out who hired him.”
“On it,” Jeff says.
Though before he can move toward Caleb’s command center, with six monitors stacked in three rows on the desk, all plugged into his laptop, Caleb interjects, “I doubt you’ll find anything.”
Jeff grins at him, giving Caleb the type of smile that bares teeth. “Sorry, kid, but I’m not you. I can find anyone.”
He’s right—he usually could, but even I had some skepticism. So far I’d seen we were dealing with a pro. I doubted they’d slip up now.
It’s a thought I keep to myself as Jeff grabs Caleb, removing him from his chair and sitting in his place. When his fingers begin flying across the keyboard, I turn back to Caleb, finding his eyes focused on his monitors. “Where’s the video?”
“There’s a copy of it on my hard drive,” Caleb says, finally looking at me. “But it’s encrypted and I doubt…”
“It’s now deleted,” Jeff interjects, fingers still rapidly typing. “I don’t see a trace of the video anywhere else.”
Caleb dares to look offended. “How in the hell did you find—”
I interrupt him before he gets himself in more trouble than he’s already in. “Do you have a hard copy?”
His glare shifts onto me. “In the drawer there, but it’s locked—”
I move to the filing cabinet next to the desk. “This drawer?” I ask, pointing to the middle one.
“Yeah. I could get you the key—”
Using all my strength, I kick the drawer twice, until it opens. There, I see a single disc resting in the empty dark gray metal drawer. “Lee, mind grabbing an evidence bag?” Then I glance at Caleb, and his glare is now an outright scowl. “Is this the only other copy you have in your possession?”
“Yes,” he snaps.
Jeff chuckles. “Lose the attitude, kid. Believe me, if you like your pretty face, you don’t want to piss this guy off.”
Caleb stares at me a moment, then, obviously taking Jeff’s advice, he exhales slowly, hanging his head.
I scoff at Jeff, who gives me one of his classic big-ass smiles, before I return us to the task at hand. “Could you tell when you first looked at the video if it was the original?” I ask Caleb.
Caleb glances up and shrugs. “I highly doubt anyone could be so stupid as to give me the one and only copy of the video.”
At least this kid was right about one thing. “All right…” I ponder through the hundreds of questions I want to ask, sticking to only the most important. “How did you receive the disc in the first place?”
It’s then Lee returns, handing me the evidence bag. I maneuver the disc into the bag, careful not to get my fingerprints on it. There’s a good chance the blackmailer has touched this disc, and at this point, regardless of the fact that we’ve stopped the video from getting out, I still need to find him.
Which suddenly worries me. While it did take some time to find Caleb, it wasn’t necessarily that difficult either. Any good hacker could have found him, which left me to wonder: Why was it so easy?
That’s never a good question to need to answer.
Trying not to get too far ahead of myself, I continue on with my questioning. “There’s nothing more you can tell me?”
“No.” He shakes his head, shoulders curled. “That’s really it. Someone contacted me through my email, then FedExed the video and instructions on who to send it to.”
Frustration bites through me, causing my jaw muscles to tighten, but I sigh away the irritation. Roadblocks are just part of this job, sadly.
Jeff suddenly snorts and rises from his chair. “I need to take this back to headquarters.” He begins unhooking the wires from the laptop. “There’s just…there’s a lot to go through, and I’d rather not do it surrounded by dirty underwear.”
I nod. “I’ll meet you back there soon.”
Jeff turns to Caleb. “Word to the wise, kid, keep doing the shit you’re doing and you’ll go to jail faster than you can take a piss.” Caleb frowns at him, and Jeff continues, “And believe me, it’d be your fellow hackers who would send you there.”
“Why would they do that?”
Jeff’s threatening smile returns. “Because you’re not helping people, you’re hurting them, and that’s just shit we don’t do. You want to do this as a job? Find a mentor.” At whatever he sees crossing Caleb’s face, Jeff laughs and adds, “And no, that mentor isn’t me.”
“Hey, wait!” Caleb exclaims as Jeff pulls out the final wire. “You’re giving that back, right?”
“That’s highly unlikely,” says Jeff, placing the laptop under his arm. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t touch a computer for a while. You’re officially going to be on the radar of the CIA and FBI. Do you really want to have a face-to-face meeting with them?”
Caleb’s eyes cast downward as his only answer.
Jeff shakes his head in obvious disappointment, then turns to me. “Anything else you need of me, chief?”
“Find where that email came from, and that’ll get you a bonus at Christmas.”
“Consider it done.” Jeff ducks to avoid the low ceiling and trots up the thin stairs.
His heavy footsteps bang above my head before I move to Caleb. “Come on, kid.” I take him by the arm and lead him out in silence, with Shawna and Lee on my heels.
I still have yet to decide what to do with him. But the air is stuffy in here, and there’s something smelly like a mixture of mold, curdled milk, and the contents of a gym bag after a year of use without washing.
Once outside on the boat’s deck, I inhale the fresh air, then face him, arms crossed.
He’s watching me closely, and maybe he’s figured out that I’m undecided if I should take him in or not, because he suddenly says, “You know, I did figure something out that I think might be useful to you. Would that get me a get-out-of-jail-free card?”
“Depends on what you’re about to tell me,” I answer honestly.
He glances around, fear in his eyes, before he whispers, “I know who’s in the video with her.”
“We already know the congressman is in the video.”
Caleb looks up at me through his lashes, eyes worried, voice small. “Yeah, but I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about the other guy. If I give you that information, will it save me from jail?”
I pick through what he’s said and focus on what he didn’t. “How do you know that we don’t already know that person’s identity?”
“Well, do you?”
I frown. “Tell me what you know.”
“All right, so…”
The next few seconds happen so fast my mind can’t keep up with the events unfolding before me. Caleb’s mouth parts…then there’s blood trailing down his face…then he slumps to the ground.
“Get down,” I roar, dropping down onto the deck. “Anyone see the shooter?�
��
“Negative,” Lee yells, as do the other members of my team.
We stay down, and the minutes drag on…and on…and on.
Slowly but surely, we venture out from our hiding spots, confident the shooter took out the target he intended and fled the scene.
“Fucking hell,” I bite off, staring down at Caleb’s lifeless body. I reach down, feeling for a pulse, but find none.
Right then, someone I don’t expect to hear comes over my earpiece. Alex begins talking so fast I can barely make out the words, but soon some become all too clear and all too real.
The senator. Shot.
Like a giant puzzle all coming together after struggling to make the pieces fit, I stare down at Caleb’s lifeless body resting at my feet, blood pooling below his head onto the boat’s deck, and I realize a plan far greater than what I could’ve imagined has been carried out tonight.
All of this. The video. Hadley. Even the photograph of Hadley and me in the tabloid. It was all a distraction so I wouldn’t be focused on the senator or guarding him. They must’ve been waiting for the senator to drop his guard. And I wasn’t there to stop him from making that error.
I’d been played…and played well, and I wasn’t particularly fucking happy about that fact either.
But the stress and strain my body endures is incomparable to when I pull my phone from my pocket to call Hadley, instead finding a text from her.
I need you.
Chapter 14
Hadley
The blue and red lights illuminate the dark sky as emergency crews rush my father out of the house and into the waiting ambulance. I don’t remember when they got here, nor do I recall when Ryder’s team arrived either, and I can only vaguely remember talking to the police. I just know that right now my father is on a gurney on the edge of dying.
I drop to the foyer floor, as grief in the purest and rawest form rips through me. But it’s grief that’s hidden behind a wall of shock. I cannot move. I can’t think of what I should do next.
There’s movement all around, but I hear nothing until I recognize a voice that breaks through the cloud of disbelief drowning me.
Then I see him.
Ryder’s standing in the doorway, the lights of the ambulance now gone, but he’s there and I sag in relief at his presence.
“You called me.” His emotional shield is down, and raw and heady emotions fill his eyes.
“I did,” I whisper. “I knew something was wrong.”
“I…” His mouth shuts and then he’s picking me up in his arms, his warm breath a comfort in my neck. “Fuck, Hadley, I’m sorry I wasn’t here with you. I should’ve been here.”
My throat tightens, and I want to say I wish he was here, too. But how unfair of me would that be? He can’t be everywhere, and I know he’s doing all he can to protect me. My heart just doesn’t seem to accept that.
Ryder finally leans away and his gaze drifts downward. I follow where he’s looking and only then do I see it.
Blood.
And now it’s all over me.
“Oh, God.” I push away, standing up, suddenly aware of why I’m here. Dad…“I need to go.” I take a step forward.
“Stop.” Ryder grasps my wrist, tugging me back into him, pressing my soft curves against his hard planes. “There is nothing you can do for your father now. Let the doctors help him. You need to get cleaned up. There is media outside.”
Again, I look down and reality finally hits home. I’m not sure why it didn’t register before like it’s hitting me now, but blood—my father’s blood—covers my gown, and that same dark stain covers my neck, my arms, all of me. “Oh, God…” I glance at my trembling hands…it’s just everywhere, and now I begin to feel the warm stickiness against me. “Ryder.” I look into his warm eyes. “Oh, God…”
He swoops in as I’m about to fall to my knees again and gathers me tightly in his arms. It’s the one place that doesn’t feel out of control. I hope he never lets go, as he begins to bark orders, “Shawna, get her some clothes from her mother’s room. Lee, unless it’s a cop who needs to be here, no one steps foot in this house.”
I hear both Shawna and Lee respond to Ryder’s orders, but I don’t care to process the words. I lay my head against Ryder’s chest, the warmth of him somehow the comfort I need right now. I’m cold, I realize, and I’m shaking from head to toe as Ryder carries me up the grand staircase.
Once we’re in the main bath, only one door away from my childhood bedroom, Ryder kicks the door shut with his foot and removes my gown before he gently places me down on the closed toilet. Silently, with slow touches, exactly what I need right now, he reaches back and unhooks my bra and slides it off my shoulders. I don’t see where he places my clothes, I can’t look away from his eyes; they’re tender, grounding me in a way I don’t understand but know right now I need more than anything else.
Sadly, all too soon, he breaks the contact and moves to the cabinet by the sink, taking a face cloth off the top. He soaks the cloth, wrings it out, and then returns to me.
“Close your eyes, Hadley,” he murmurs.
I do as he asks, because I take it to mean it’s for a good reason. As I feel the first swipe of the cloth against my collarbone, my mind slowly begins piecing together all that happened.
Screams echo off the walls in the den, and the horror of it all, I realize, is that the screams are coming from my mouth. I press my head against my father’s chest, desperate to feel some movement, a little lifting of his chest with a slight breath or a heartbeat. I can’t be certain that I feel anything, but I also can’t feel a pulse either and there’s no way I’m going to let my father die, not like this. Not in our family home. Not covered in blood.
“Daddy! Wake up,” I beg him.
My eyes snap open and it’s then I see why Ryder didn’t want me to look. When he wrings out the rag, crimson water runs down the drain. My stomach heaves and I close my eyes again, trying to fly away to some other reality.
But I don’t.
My heartbeat pounds in my ears as I reach for my father’s shirt and lift it up, seeing an open wound in his chest. A stab wound? A bullet wound? I don’t know. But regardless, I use the skirt of my gown and bundle it into a ball, pressing it hard against his chest. My arms begin to shake against the pressure but nothing will break my hold.
“Please, Daddy. Please don’t die.”
Then there’s silence and it’s long and painful with each passing second, devastating me over and over again.
Until suddenly I’m not alone.
There’s a flurry of activity in front of me and the only thing I can make out is a Blackwood Security T-shirt.
“Get EMS here. Now! The senator’s been shot.”
Then that same man I heard speaking is moving in next to me, lifting my father off the chair and examining his back. “There’s no exit wound,” he says.
To me? To someone else? I don’t know.
“Hadley, keep pressing tight,” he instructs, his fingers moving to my father’s wrist. “I feel a pulse.”
I’m pulled back into the present as Ryder drags the cloth over a nipple, and the bud puckers beneath his touch. He says nothing and continues cleaning me over the next several minutes, until there’s a knock at the door.
When he moves away, I look down at my hands, seeing the blood is now gone. And one look in the mirror shows no trace of my father’s injury. My eyes shut again as I hear him take my mother’s clothes from Shawna, but that’s all I hear. My father…
My chest begins heaving, my throat squeezing. It’s then I feel the moisture sliding down my cheeks, and that’s when I’m tugged into strong arms.
“I’m here,” Ryder whispers.
And apparently that’s all I need to hear.
I drop my face into his chest, grip his T-shirt tightly in my hands, and the floodgates open. There is nothing I can do to stop my tears from rolling down my face. Because it’s the fear that my father might die. It’s the sadness th
at I had to see him like that. It’s the worry and strain of all that I’ve been dealing with lately. And it’s years of repressed emotions that are now safe in the arms of a man I know will catch me if I fall.
Many minutes tick by, and I don’t recall when I stopped sobbing and could catch my breath again. I don’t even recall when I lifted my head to look at him, the strength I needed to lean on. Nor do I recall when my vision cleared enough so I could see him. But then all I see is the affection in his eyes, the warmth and longtime friendship between us.
“And that’s how you properly deal with emotions,” he tells me softly. “You don’t run from them. You feel them. And then you do whatever the hell you can to make yourself feel better.” His warm touch slides across my cheeks as his hands bracket my face. “You need me, Hadley. Take me.”
Working on total instincts and pure desperation to gain control of my life, I slide my hands across his buzz-cut hair and seal my mouth across his, kissing him roughly. I push against him, until I’m no longer sitting on the closed toilet seat, but he is. He doesn’t stop me when I reach for his buckle, and in fact, he helps me get his pants down to his knees, freeing his cock for me. I climb onto his lap, and I’m lost in the intense way he’s watching me, as I take him in so very deep. His hands sprawl over my back, sliding up and down until they move up my neck and slide over my face, cupping my cheeks.
He takes my mouth, softly kissing me, and then he leans away. “Come here.”
There’s something passing between us, something magical, as he tucks my head into his neck, holding on to my nape, while the other arm wraps tightly around my back. I grind against him, back and forth, slowly turning all the anguish into something different, something pleasurable.
His arms are safe. His hold is strong. For right now, I don’t think about all the things I should think about. For now, I feel better in a world that’s crumbling around me. I feel affection in a life that’s been filled with death. I feel realness from a man who touches me not out of lust but out of something so much deeper.
There’s nothing sexy about touching him now. It’s not hot; it’s raw. It’s not desire; it’s emotions. For once in maybe ever, I feel like I’m not alone in this messy thing we call life.
Restrained Under His Duty Page 12